Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
AJ
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, wondering why I’m even contemplating sharing anything with him, much less giving him such personal details.
“This isn’t . . . something I talk about.”
“With anyone?” I ask.
“With anyone who isn’t Nicholas.”
“You two are really close, huh? Even despite the age difference.”
It’s hard not to laugh at that, because I’m old enough to be his mom. “Yeah, well, my parents treated him like the accident he was, so I had to step in.”
“Shit.” He breathes the word out on a long exhale. “Maybe it’s because both my parents grew up in foster care, or maybe it’s the way my ex so easily gave Abby up, but there’s something about parents abandoning their kid that never sits right with me.”
“My parents weren’t...terrible to him. They didn’t abandon him; they were just neglectful. I was a senior in high school when my mom got pregnant, and it was obviously not planned. They’d always wanted more kids, but by that point, they’d long ago accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. And then it did. I missed most of his early years because I was at college...”
“Too busy captaining a championship hockey team?” His voice is teasing. This isn’t something we’ve ever talked about, so the fact that he knows I was the captain of my two-time NCAA winning women’s hockey team means he’s looked into it.
“But I moved back to St. Louis when I graduated so I could be closer to my family. I didn’t want to not have a relationship with my little brother. That’s where I coached a D1 women’s team while getting my MBA,” I say, thinking about how back then, there was no path for women playing hockey beyond college, so I moved into coaching and earned that business degree so that eventually I could get into the management side of the sport. “And as busy as I was, I still managed to spend exponentially more time with Nicholas than my parents did. I was absolutely appalled at how he almost didn’t exist in their lives.”
“How’s that possible?”
“They just left him with a nanny all the time while they went about their lives. International travel, full days of golf followed by dinner at the country club, weekends away...he was never part of any of it.”
When I glance over at him, his eyes are full of sympathy. Normally, I hate the thought of anyone feeling sorry for me or my brother. But with McCabe, it feels maybe more like empathy—like he can relate, somehow. Not because his parents were neglectful, but because he lost them when he was still so young.
He turns onto his side, elbow bent so he can prop his head up and stare down at me with that intense green gaze. “Was it like that when you were younger too?”
“No...my mom was never super maternal. All she ever wanted to do with me was take me shopping, go to high tea at fancy hotels, go to brunch at the country club, that type of thing. But I was never interested in any of that. I had much more in common with my dad. He spent every spare minute with me, shaping me into the hockey playing son he wished he’d had...”
McCabe’s low rumble of laughter shakes the whole bed, and when I dip my eyebrows in confusion over his response, he says, “Sorry.” His eyes slip down my body and then back up to my face. “I just have trouble imagining you as someone’s son.”
“You know what I mean. It was no secret that my dad wanted a boy, so I put tremendous energy into connecting with him in the same ways he’d have connected to a son. It’s probably the only reason we had a relationship.”
What I don’t say is that it took me years of therapy as an adult to finally realize that my compulsive need to be the best at everything stems from the years of trying to live up to what my dad wanted me to be—which was someone else.
I got lucky in that I really did develop a true love of hockey, but I do sometimes wonder who I’d be if I hadn’t been trying so hard to fit a mold of someone else’s creation.
Maybe I’d be the same me, but maybe I’d be someone entirely different?
“He wasn’t like that with Nicholas, though?”
My single shot of laughter is bitter. “No, once he finally got the son he’d always wanted, it was like he was no longer interested in being a dad. He was more like a grandpa...the kind that spends all day on the golf course with friends, but comes by for dinner and slips you a twenty-dollar bill as he pats you on the head on his way back out the door.”
He lets out a humph that’s half laugh, half contemplation. “I guess I just don’t have any experience with parents who are so rich they spend all day shopping and on the golf course. What did your parents do for work?”
“My mom’s family owned one of the largest department store chains in the Midwest, and my parents inherited it and then sold it for a fortune right before the advent of online shopping.” The whole company went bankrupt within a few years after the sale, but my parents and their shareholders made out like bandits before its demise. I’d like to think I get my business sense from my dad, who saw which way the wind was blowing and made a calculated decision.
“So they were what . . . retired by the time Nicholas was born?”
“I guess I’d say they were so independently wealthy that work wasn’t really a consideration. At that time, I was working hard to carve my own path. I probably should have taken over caring for him when I finished my MBA, but I was too focused on getting my foot in the door in hockey. I don’t know how I would have managed also being a mom to him.”
“How did you end up making the switch from coaching a women’s college team to working in the NHL?”
I bite the inside of my cheek as I study his face, only a foot or so from mine. His voice is soft and coaxing, and it hits me that either he really doesn’t know, or he wants to know if the rumors are true. And suddenly knowing which one makes all the difference.
“What have you heard?” I whisper.
He presses his lips together, then twists them to the side like he’s deep in thought. I don’t know if it’s because he’s trying to remember, or trying to decide how—or what—to tell me.
“Only the shit Chet said when he was running his mouth.”
Fire runs through my blood at the thought of my ex-husband talking about me to his players. “Yeah? What did he say?”
“You were there.” He reaches over, resting his forearm along my breastbone as he cups the side of my face in his hand.
Ohhh, so that time in the hallway.
“He said a lot of shit that day.” I focus on my breathing, because it’s still hard not to be upset when I think about everything that happened—everything that changed—in those few minutes in that hallway.
“If I remember correctly, he said you slept your way into your position.”
“Ah, yes. One of his favorite lines.” I roll my eyes to hide how much that still hurts.
“Why did he think that?”
The laugh that bursts out of me is probably the healthiest response I could have to that question. “Because he got me my first job in St. Louis.”
His thumb strokes my cheek as his eyes skim over my face. “Yeah?”
“We’d been dating for a while, and a job in operations opened up. With my experience in hockey and my degree in business, it was a perfect fit. I’d wanted to apply on my own, but he insisted on putting in a good word for me. At the time, he said he’d do anything it took to help me achieve my dreams. Now, I think he just wanted me to feel beholden to him.”
“I’m inclined to think that you’d have gotten the job with or without his recommendation,” he says, tilting his head with a pensive nod. “And you clearly didn’t sleep your way to the top once you were there. You earned all of that. So what I’m hearing is, either he was jealous that you were more successful than he was?—”
“Exactly.”
“—or he was so insecure he actually believed the only reason you were with him in the first place was to get a job in the NHL. He wasn’t worthy of you, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that were true, too.”
That thought had never crossed my mind. The idea that his own insecurity was what triggered that behavior would make a lot of things make a lot more sense. McCabe is still staring down at me, but the look on his face has changed.
It almost looks like he’s proud of me? I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I feel myself softening a bit more toward him.
“I’m not sure. His whole attitude toward me changed so much that season—” I stop myself somewhat abruptly because, holy shit, was I about to just tell him the most private thing about me? Something that no one else outside my family knows?
His fingers tighten on my jaw as I try to look away, and he angles my face back so there’s no option but to look him in the eye.
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing.”
“If he hurt you . . . if he laid a single finger on you . . .”
“Trust me,” I say, “the abuse was entirely emotional.”
His entire body stiffens. “I’m going to need you to say more about that.”
Tell him it’s none of his business , my brain insists. But somehow, the gentleness I’ve seen from him the past couple of days, combined with his possessive and protective side, makes me want to spill all my secrets.
Don’t do it . . .
I press my lips together, but even as I do so, I know I’m going to tell this man everything, even as I wonder why I can’t stop myself...even as I warn myself that it’s safer if he doesn’t know.
Maybe there’s a little part of me, some sick, twisted part, that needs to know if he’ll have the same response Chet did.
“That was the year I had my uterus removed.”
His thumb strokes my cheek, wiping away a tear I didn’t intend to let loose.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
The absolute care and concern with which he asks those questions guts me. It couldn’t possibly be more different from Chet’s response.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I suffered from uterine fibroids, starting in my mid-twenties. Sometimes they’re painless and people don’t even know they have them. But I had...” I consider how much I want to tell him about my symptoms, and decide he doesn’t need to know everything. “...significant side effects.”
His thumb wipes away more tears, and he nods like he wants me to continue.
“I had two surgeries to remove them, but both times they came back within a year. My doctor said that after coming back twice, it was likely that would keep happening every time they were removed. Apparently, having fibroids the size of grapefruits lining your uterus will make you infertile, which meant it was unlikely I’d ever be able to have kids.” I take a deep breath. “And given how painful they were, and that I’d be facing multiple surgeries in my future to keep removing them, I made the decision to have my uterus removed instead.”
His scent, a combination of something earthy like wood, and fresh like laundry detergent, engulfs me as he leans down and brushes his lips across my forehead. Curling his arm next to my head, he uses it as a pillow so he can lay there, facing me.
I shouldn’t turn on my side to face him fully. I shouldn’t let him wrap his other arm around my back. I shouldn’t continue my story. But when he asks what happened next, I find that I just want to keep talking.
“Chet didn’t support my decision. He couldn’t let go of the idea of us having kids one day and was convinced the next fibroid surgery would be successful.”
“Please don’t tell me you had them removed a third time.”
I think back to the month-long recovery that sidelined me for a third summer in a row. “I did.”
“And they came back?”
“Of course they did.”
“Was he more reasonable about your choice after that?”
I can tell how sad my smile is by the way his lips turn down at the corners in response. His face keeps changing expression, and I wish I could hear the thoughts in his head.
“So what happened then?”
“I went ahead with the partial hysterectomy the following summer, even though he still didn’t want me to.” I watch his jaw tic. “And then once it was done, he had this whole narrative about how I always knew I wouldn’t be able to have kids and I’d trapped him. I know he just wanted to put the blame on me, because he’d look like the asshole if he left me after all I’d gone through.”
“He was already an asshole, either way,” McCabe says with a humorless laugh.
“He put on a good show at the beginning. We were married for years before I started seeing his true colors. Honestly, I didn’t even know that having kids was that important to him. I don’t think it was, actually, until it was something I couldn’t give him.”
The way McCabe’s hand is sliding down my arm, smoothing out the shiver that’s rippled through my body at all these memories, has me practically melting into these sheets.
Why am I so relaxed around him? Why do I want to tell him things I’ve never told anyone outside my family?
“Is that where your marriage fell apart?”
“Yeah, that was kind of the nail in the coffin, so to speak. My hysterectomy was the summer before your last season in St. Louis. What you walked into in the hallway that day, it was one of the many fights we’d been having about me not being able to give him children.”
“Did you guys consider adopting?”
I make the fakest shocked face I can as I say, “And ruin his perfect pedigree? The horror.” I release a heavy sigh. “I even suggested a surrogate, since I’d had eggs removed and frozen during my last surgery, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”
In reality, I think I’d wanted kids more than Chet did. He just wanted something to hold over my head. I’d been angry at myself for years after I finally figured that out. But now, I just feel sad that I wasted so much time and emotional energy on him, and on trying to save our sham of a marriage.
“And you wanted kids?” He asks the question tentatively, like he knows the answer but wants to make sure he’s not making assumptions.
I didn’t intend to tell him any of this. It feels way too personal to share with someone I hardly know. Lying here with him, while the light has faded and the moon has risen, makes it feel like we’re in our own little world—one where I’m not his boss, and he’s not a hot-headed hockey player I don’t even like. Instead, we’re just two people connecting on a deeper level.
I gulp, trying to push down all the emotions rising to the surface. “More than anything.”
His gaze searches mine, brow pinched slightly. “How did he not see how much you were hurting, and support you through that?” He shakes his head before adding, “How do you treat someone you love that way?”
“I’m pretty sure that the only person Chet loves is himself. You want to know the real kicker in all this?”
He sighs, and his warm breath mingles with mine in the small space between our bodies. “Please don’t tell me it gets worse.”
“The day you walked in on us fighting...I’d just found out he was cheating on me. With a woman who had a kid. And after I kicked him out, he went running straight to her. Ended up marrying her and adopting her daughter.” I swallow down the thick lump in my throat and press my hand to my chest to relieve some of the pain that’s gathering there. “It wasn’t that he didn’t want to adopt, he just didn’t want me .”
McCabe scoops me into his arms, pulling me against his body so quickly I barely move my right hand out of the way before it would have been crushed between us.
“He’s a fucking idiot, Alessandra,” he murmurs into my hair. “Don’t convince yourself that this had anything to do with you. This was him, desperately trying to have the upper hand when he realized he’d married someone who was better than him in every single way imaginable.”
With my eyes closed and my forehead resting against the hollow space at the base of his neck, secure and warm, wrapped in his arms, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I feel like I can breathe again.